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Radar journey to centre of Hera’s asteroid with Juventas CubeSat
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:02:14 On 12 March 2025, ESA’s Hera spacecraft soared just 5000 km above Mars and passed within 300 km of its distant moon, Deimos. Captured by Hera’s 1020x1020 pixel Asteroid Framing Camera, this video sequence offers a rare view of the red planet and its enigmatic moon. The original greyscale images have been colour-enhanced based on known surface features.
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By NASA
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is 6 days and less than 50 million miles (80 million km) away from its second close encounter with an asteroid; this time, the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson.
Download high-resolution video and images from NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.
NASA/Dan Gallagher This upcoming event represents a comprehensive “dress rehearsal” for Lucy’s main mission over the next decade: the exploration of multiple Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the Sun. Lucy’s first asteroid encounter – a flyby of the tiny main belt asteroid Dinkinesh and its satellite, Selam, on Nov. 1, 2023 – provided the team with an opportunity for a systems test that they will be building on during the upcoming flyby.
Lucy’s closest approach to Donaldjohanson will occur at 1:51pm EDT on April 20, at a distance of 596 miles (960 km). About 30 minutes before closest approach, Lucy will orient itself to track the asteroid, during which its high-gain antenna will turn away from Earth, suspending communication. Guided by its terminal tracking system, Lucy will autonomously rotate to keep Donaldjohanson in view. As it does this, Lucy will carry out a more complicated observing sequence than was used at Dinkinesh. All three science instruments – the high-resolution greyscale imager called L’LORRI, the color imager and infrared spectrometer called L’Ralph, and the far infrared spectrometer called L’TES – will carry out observation sequences very similar to the ones that will occur at the Trojan asteroids.
However, unlike with Dinkinesh, Lucy will stop tracking Donaldjohanson 40 seconds before the closest approach to protect its sensitive instruments from intense sunlight.
“If you were sitting on the asteroid watching the Lucy spacecraft approaching, you would have to shield your eyes staring at the Sun while waiting for Lucy to emerge from the glare. After Lucy passes the asteroid, the positions will be reversed, so we have to shield the instruments in the same way,” said encounter phase lead Michael Vincent of Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado. “These instruments are designed to photograph objects illuminated by sunlight 25 times dimmer than at Earth, so looking toward the Sun could damage our cameras.”
Fortunately, this is the only one of Lucy’s seven asteroid encounters with this challenging geometry. During the Trojan encounters, as with Dinkinesh, the spacecraft will be able to collect data throughout the entire encounter.
After closest approach, the spacecraft will “pitch back,” reorienting its solar arrays back toward the Sun. Approximately an hour later, the spacecraft will re-establish communication with Earth.
“One of the weird things to wrap your brain around with these deep space missions is how slow the speed of light is,” continued Vincent. “Lucy is 12.5 light minutes away from Earth, meaning it takes that long for any signal we send to reach the spacecraft. Then it takes another 12.5 minutes before we get Lucy’s response telling us we were heard. So, when we command the data playback after closest approach, it takes 25 minutes from when we ask to see the pictures before we get any of them to the ground.”
Once the spacecraft’s health is confirmed, engineers will command Lucy to transmit the science data from the encounter back to Earth, which is a process that will take several days.
Donaldjohanson is a fragment from a collision 150 million years ago, making it one of the youngest main belt asteroids ever visited by a spacecraft.
“Every asteroid has a different story to tell, and these stories weave together to paint the history of our solar system,” said Tom Statler, Lucy mission program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The fact that each new asteroid we visit knocks our socks off means we’re only beginning to understand the depth and richness of that history. Telescopic observations are hinting that Donaldjohanson is going to have an interesting story, and I’m fully expecting to be surprised – again.”
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, designed and built the L’Ralph instrument and provides overall mission management, systems engineering and safety and mission assurance for Lucy. Hal Levison of SwRI’s office in Boulder, Colorado, is the principal investigator. SwRI, headquartered in San Antonio, also leads the science team and the mission’s science observation planning and data processing. Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, built the spacecraft, designed the original orbital trajectory and provides flight operations. Goddard and KinetX Aerospace are responsible for navigating the Lucy spacecraft. The Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, designed and built the L’LORRI (Lucy Long Range Reconnaissance Imager) instrument. Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, designed and build the L’TES (Lucy Thermal Emission Spectrometer) instrument. Lucy is the thirteenth mission in NASA’s Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
By Katherine Kretke, Southwest Research Institute
Media Contact:
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / molly.l.wasser@nasa.gov
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Apr 14, 2025 EditorMadison OlsonContactNancy N. Jonesnancy.n.jones@nasa.govLocationGoddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By NASA
Long before joining NASA’s Test and Evaluation Support Team contract in October 2024, Angel Saenz was already an engineer at heart.
A STEM education program at his high school helped unlock that passion, setting him on a path that would eventually lead to NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Angel Saenz poses in front of a composite overwrap pressure vessel outside of his office at White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico. NASA/Anthony L. Quiterio The program – FIRST Robotics Competition – is run by global nonprofit, FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology). It was the brainchild of prolific inventor Dean Kamen, best known for creating the Segway.
In what the organization calls “the ultimate sport for the mind,” teams of students spend six weeks working under adult mentors—and strict rules—to design, program, and build industrial-sized robots before facing off in a themed tournament. Teams earn points for accomplishing various engineering feats, launching, grappling, and climbing their way through the obstacles of a game that’s less football and more American Ninja Warrior.
Competing during the 2013 and 2014 seasons with the White Sands-sponsored Deming Thundercats, Saenz said FIRST was a link between abstract mathematical ideas and real-world applications.
“Before joining FIRST, equations were just something I was told to solve for a grade, but now I was applying them and seeing how they were actually useful,” he said.
By turning education into an extracurricular activity as compelling as video games and as competitive as any varsity sport, FIRST completely reshaped Saenz’s approach to learning.
“There are lots of other things kids can choose to do outside of school, but engineering was always that thing for me,” he said. “I associate it with being a fun activity, I see it more as a hobby.”
That kind of energy—as any engineer knows—cannot be destroyed. Today Saenz channels it into his work, tackling challenges with White Sand’s Composite Pressure group where he tests and analyzes pressure vessel systems, enabling their safe use in space programs.
“Having that foundation really helps ground me,” he said. “When I see a problem, I can look back and say, ‘That’s like what happened in FIRST Robotics and here’s how we solved it.’”
Deming High School teacher and robotics mentor David Wertz recognized Saenz’s aptitude for engineering, even when Saenz could not yet see it in himself.
“He wasn’t aware that we were using the engineering process as we built our robot,” Wertz said, “but he was always looking for ways to iterate and improve our designs.”
Saenz credits those early hands-on experiences for giving him a head start.
“It taught me a lot of concepts that weren’t supposed to be learned until college,” he said.
Armed with that knowledge, Saenz graduated from New Mexico State University in 2019 with a dual degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering.
Now 28 years old, Saenz is already an accomplished professional. He adds White Sands to an impressive resume that includes past experiences with Albuquerque-based global manufacturing company Jabil and Kirtland Airforce Base.
Though only five months into the job, Saenz’s future at White Sands was set into motion more than a decade ago when he took a field trip to the site with Wertz in 2013.
“The kind invitations to present at White Sands or to take a tour of the facility has inspired many of the students to pursue degrees in engineering and STEM,” Wertz said. “The partnership continues to allow students to see the opportunities that are available for them if they are willing to put in the work.”
In a full-circle moment, Saenz and Mr. Wertz recently found themselves together at White Sands once again for the 2024 Environmental, Innovation, Safety, and Health Day event. This time not as student and teacher, but as industry colleagues in a reunion that could not have been better engineered.
David Wertz and Angel Saenz attend White Sand’s Environmental, Innovation, Safety, and Health Day event on October 31, 2024. The 2025 FIRST Robotics World Competition will take place in Houston at the George R. Brown Convention Center from April 16 to April 19. NASA will host an exciting robotics exhibit at the event, showcasing the future of technology and spaceflight. As many as 60,000 energetic fans, students, and industry leaders are expected to attend. Read more about NASA’s involvement with FIRST Robotics here.
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By European Space Agency
Image: This image shows Webb’s recent observation of the asteroid 2024 YR4 using both its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Data from NIRCam shows reflected light, while the MIRI observations show thermal light.
On 8 March 2025, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its watchful eye toward asteroid 2024 YR4, which we now know poses no significant threat to Earth in 2032 and beyond.
This is the smallest object targeted by Webb to date, and one of the smallest objects to have its size directly measured.
Observations were taken to study the thermal properties of 2024 YR4, including how quickly it heats up and cools down and how hot it is at its current distance from the Sun. These measurements indicate that this asteroid does not share properties observed in larger asteroids. This is likely a combination of its fast spin and lack of fine-grained sand on its surface. Further research is needed, however this is considered consistent with a surface dominated by rocks that are roughly fist-sized or larger.
Asteroid 2024 YR4 was recently under close watch by the team at ESA's Near Earth Objects Coordination Centre, located in Italy. Planetary defence experts from the Agency's Space Safety programme worked with NASA and the international asteroid community to closely watch this object and refine its orbit, which was eventually determined to not pose a risk of Earth impact. Read details on this unusual campaign via ESA's Rocket Science blog and in news articles here and here.
Webb’s observations indicate that the asteroid measures roughly 60 meters (comparable to the height of a 15-story building).
The new observations from Webb not only provide unique information about 2024 YR4’s size, but can also complement ground-based observations of the object's position to help improve our understanding of the object’s orbit and future trajectory.
Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process.
[Image description: A collage of three images showing the black expanse of space. Two-thirds of the collage is taken up by the black background sprinkled with small, blurry galaxies in orange, blue, and white. There are two images in a column at the right side of the collage. On the right side of the main image, not far from the top, a very faint dot is outlined with a white square. At the right, there are two zoomed in views of this area. The top box is labeled NIRCam and shows a fuzzy dot at the center of the inset. The bottom box is labeled MIRI and shows a fuzzy pinkish dot.]
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By European Space Agency
As ESA’s Hera planetary defence mission flew past planet Mars it autonomously locked onto dozens of impact craters and other prominent surface features to track them over time, in a full-scale test of the self-driving technology that the spacecraft will employ to navigate around its target asteroids.
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